The present invention relates to an apparatus for binding a three dimensional rectangular parallelepiped article such as a cardboard box or a pack of paper sheets, for example, bank notes and securities, with an elongated binding material such as a tape or string. The article is bound twice, first along the central line in the longitudinal direction or in the width direction of the article and, then, in the direction perpendicular to the first binding direction. Therefore, binding is performed in cross shape, that is, tape strips are perpendicular to each other.
The apparatus of this type is used in various fields. In particular, the apparatus is used as a bundling unit for bank notes in a bundling system in a main bank. In this case, the article to be bound is a pack of bank notes and the binding material is a tape.
As an application example in which this apparatus is used, a paper currency bundling system employing the binding apparatus will be generally described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.
In a binding unit q in the paper currency bundling system, the binding operation must be performed quickly and tight binding of cross shape must be guaranteed.
In a system in which the article is bound in cross shape, in general, two binding apparatuses are disposed parallel to each other. An operator performs binding in one direction at one of the binding apparatuses and feeds the bound article to the second binding apparatus. The operator performs binding in a direction perpendicular to the direction described above at the second apparatus.
With this system, two binding apparatus are required. Further the binding operation is time-consuming and cumbersome and the feeding distance becomes great.
In order to solve the above drawbacks of the conventional bundling system, a single binding apparatus which performs binding in the directions perpendicular to each other in a single binding position has been developed.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-13,132 discloses an apparatus mounted to a printing machine, in which printed packs which are stacked are regarded as the article and the article is bound in the binding position in cross shape. In this case, the article is clamped by a pair of clamp members from both sides. After first binding is performed, the clamped article is turned through 90 degrees on the horizontal axis and then second binding is performed in a direction perpendicular to the direction described above.
With this structure, the article and the clamp members are bound together so that the clamp members must be removed after the binding operation is completed. Therefore, tight binding may not be performed.